Sir, – I refer to the article “‘I was begging for pain relief but they said I wasn’t dilated enough’: Women query HSE maternity service guidelines,” (Health, July 16th).Is it time for the HSE maternity services to experience a #MeToo movement? #MeTooHSE?I felt numb reading the stories of the women in this article being denied pain relief during early labour. This was my story too. Yes, some women have relatively easy labours, pain wise. Many of us do not, particularly if you have been induced. I gave birth in 2016. I went into painful labour after being induced in the evening. I kept asking throughout the evening to be moved to the labour ward for an epidural. I was repeatedly told by the midwife on duty that there were no beds available and, anyway, I wasn’t dilated enough yet. It was the worst night of my life. At 8am when the consultant came in and did his rounds he was clearly surprised I was still there, a pathetic sobbing mess, in pain. He told the midwife to send me straight up to the labour ward for an epidural. Some HSE representatives who have been out in the media, in the wake of Dr Peter Boylan’s opinion article (“Women are being put in danger by Ireland’s new guidelines on labour,” Opinion, July 5th), are not correct when they assert that women are listened to and can request an obstetric model of care instead of midwifery or can request appropriate pain relief. I begged for that care, I begged for an epidural and was denied it by the midwives. Only when the consultant started his shift in the morning did I receive the correct care.I think midwives do a fantastic job and I had some wonderful midwives care for me. But they follow the guidelines set by the HSE and they stick to those guidelines even though, as a HSE representative pointed out on RTÉ Radio 1 recently, they are “just guidelines” and can be circumvented in exceptional cases. My experience, and those of the women in this article, show HSE guidelines are adhered to in matters of pain relief in early labour even when there is clearly a case to deviate from those guidelines.For years after my child was born I couldn’t think about the night of her birth. I was traumatised by the memory of not just the painful labour, but the clinical, cold indifference to my pain and pleading for care.I couldn’t talk about my labour without crying. I cried my way through therapy sessions. I also had postnatal depression, and I believe the events of my labour contributed to this.We are supposed to be an affluent, civilised country with a high standard of care in our health service. There is nothing civilised or caring in being left a sobbing mess for hours, begging for pain relief, and being denied it. I am very grateful to Dr Boylan for speaking out about the deficiencies in the HSE guidelines on early labour care. – Yours, etc,Aisling Considine,Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.